Interview with InRegalia
Interview with InRegalia
What inspired the name of the band? What are your influences?
The band’s name was one of the 25 or so names I’d come up with during the time I played with a couple of cover bands when I was in the US. When I moved back to India, I’d pretty much set my mind on InRegalia, though I didn’t have a band. So, when the band was in its nascent stages, all the members at the time were fine with the band’s name when it was proposed to them. I’d always envisioned the music to reflect a bit of ethnicity but yet have it resonate with a mass audience. By design, the name fortunately made sense from that point of view.
We’ve been influenced by a number of bands and artists. Our sound is a melting pot and will continue to evolve. I would say Bon Jovi, Soundgarden, Def Leppard, Foo Fighters, Iron Maiden, The Police and Indian bands such as Indus Creed and Motherjane are just some of our influences.
How do you approach songwriting? Are there any themes that you are keen to explore when you start off?
I never force myself to write a song. Instead I use a variety of different approaches. I use the idea as a ‘seed’ and then work off of it. The ideas could come to me from any situation or experience. Some examples could be a guitar riff, a vocal melody idea, a percussive groove I’ve heard on a song and at times it could come to me when I’m in a totally non-related musical situation. Basically, I just keep my senses open to anything I perceive as an idea.
I then write the lyrics to these ideas based on what I feel about the different situations or circumstances and the observations I’ve made about life in general. At any given point of time, there’s atleast a few ideas at the back of my head. I don’t necessarily sit down to finish it immediately until I feel I have something to help complement the idea
How do you approach songwriting? Are there any themes that you are keen to explore when you start off?
I never force myself to write a song. Instead I use a variety of different approaches. I use the idea as a ‘seed’ and then work off of it. The ideas could come to me from any situation or experience. Some examples could be a guitar riff, a vocal melody idea, a percussive groove I’ve heard on a song and at times it could come to me when I’m in a totally non-related musical situation. Basically, I just keep my senses open to anything I perceive as an idea.
I then write the lyrics to these ideas based on what I feel about the different situations or circumstances and the observations I’ve made about life in general. At any given point of time, there’s atleast a few ideas at the back of my head. I don’t necessarily sit down to finish it immediately until I feel I have something to help complement the idea
Why do you write the sort of music that you do?
To me, music is like story telling. If I were to narrate a story, it’ll have to be a little fresh to the ears while at the same time captivating. Its very subjective of course but that’s my general attitude towards music and songwriting. The music is a culmination of my thoughts and views on various subjects or themes that I’m thinking at the time or have thought about in the past.
How do you decide what songs to perform live and how do you transpose them into that live setting?
The choice of songs would be purely based on the gig’s flow. We’ve got a diverse set of songs which we spread out over the course of the gig primarily to break the monotony. When transposing songs into live settings, we tend to keep the main elements of each of the songs and improvise on some of the parts.
How do you decide what songs to perform live and how do you transpose them into that live setting?
The choice of songs would be purely based on the gig’s flow. We’ve got a diverse set of songs which we spread out over the course of the gig primarily to break the monotony. When transposing songs into live settings, we tend to keep the main elements of each of the songs and improvise on some of the parts.
What plans do you have for the future?
Going forward, we want to develop a good and loyal fanbase. We’d also like to engage our audience and build a community of sorts. We’ve just had our first instrumental release as a single and we’ve got a string of releases starting early next year. There’s plenty of music in store.